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On February 09 2011 22:13 Sm3agol wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 22:03 enzym wrote:On February 09 2011 22:00 Sm3agol wrote: If humans weren't supposed to eat meat, then our bodies wouldn't be able to handle eating meat.
Meat is tasty. There is nothing morally wrong with eating meat that I see. They are lower than us on the food chain, and their animal contemporaries certainly have no problem with ripping them to shreds and eating them alive. Why aren't you people crying out for the murder of all predators to keep all these poor animals from being mangled by lions and wolves and such? It is good for you.
I eat meat, and don't ever intend to stop. Because those other animals don't share human level of awareness and reasoning capability. Animals have little choice to act on anything but instincts. Humans do have that choice and if you do not make use of those capabilities but choose to ignore them then you are degrading yourself back to animal level, in fact placing yourself below the level of animals, because animals do not have such a choice. So because we are smarter than animals, we shouldn't eat them? Eh? You're making the grand assumption that eating meat is wrong in the first place. I happen to disagree with you. I do in fact not make that assumption. Please stop repeatedly strawmanning my posts.
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It's not so much the actual eating of meat part that bothers ethical vegetarians, it is the financial support for the unethical practices that lead to the food getting to your local supermarkets and eventually to you, the consumer, that bothers them.
Re: "Meat tastes good" - Taste does not justify supporting practices that produce suffering. You wouldn't eat a human if they taste good because of the suffering that would be a result. Now listen to your internal dialogue saying "BUT THEY'RE AN ANIMAL!". That's arbitrary considering it is not the sex, race, or species of an individual that is a major concern in ethical matters. Suffering is a major concern, if not the prime concern, in most ethical evaluations.
Re: "There are more important problems in the world" - how does eating different food take up so much time that you cannot help out with other problems in the world? Point being, yes there are many problems in the world, and being vegetarian only means what you eat is different, so vegetarians can still help out with other problems in the world than unnecessary animal suffering.
Re: "I've seen pastures of cows at a local farm..." - those are the minority. The majority, sadly, are from factory farming. Factory farming is more efficient and cost-effective, yet results in significantly more unnecessary suffering.
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Will some of the vegan/vegitarian community return to eating meat when they finally get it tank grown?
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On February 09 2011 22:24 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 21:53 enzym wrote:On February 09 2011 21:36 mcc wrote: By that happy phrase I meant that I have no moral problems with eating meat per se.
Empathy is emotion(even towards animals) that most normal people have, you just have to use reason to look at the practical side of things. So of course I feel empathy towards tortured animal, but that just means I don't want it to suffer, but killing them for food is natural. And by saying that you think you should care shows that you actually at least slightly care. I think if you saw screaming and crying tortured animal you would feel sorry for it, yes it is possible to grow accustomed to human/animal suffering, but that is not the case for most citizens of first world.
Of course you are not feeling bad for every suffering animal on the planet, because that is not humanly possible as it is not possible to be actively 24-7 sorry for the people in the third world or in disaster areas. But thanks to that empathy you acknowledge that something is wrong and using your brain support practical measures to rectify it. PETA people go too far with the emotional part, on the other hand people who do not really care about animal suffering (and as I said by caring I mean just that, there is no action required, although than you run risk of being kind of hypocrite) are just kind of inhuman. Also note that there is big moral distinction between humans and animals. So it is easily possible to have "absolute" moral system where there is no problem with eating meat and even using animals for research (specific one).
At what level of intellectual sophistication do you draw the line between it being ok to kill an organism for food and it being not ok? Which criteria does an organism have to fulfill for you to consider other factors additionally to just suffering and efficiency? Except for being human, there is no big line line as far as killing for eating goes (of course as everything in real life it is more complicated, as factors like killing 1000 bisons "for eating" when in the end only 2 will be actually eaten). I am all for drawing that line beneath humans somewhat, but I never put that much time into thinking about details or if there is any reasonable justification for it, it just feels right. I would exclude animals like primates, dolphins, ... hope you see the pattern. But as far as eating is concerned any line except animal/plant or humans/rest one is arbitrary. And the line animal/plant without also including humans/rest line has its own set of problems if you would like to apply it consistently to other areas. I think the best approach is to just accept that it is continuum or at least a lot of different groups on some scale and draw the line somewhere in reasonably safe point, same as with other stuff like when to allow abortions. Yes, exactly. I think that it's a continuum too, but wanted to hear your take on where you would logically draw that line and say "that organism is too intelligent for us to kill it even if we do it painlessly and for the most efficient method of production available".
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I put chicken and bacon in my salads.
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On February 09 2011 21:57 BrogMeister wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 21:47 mcc wrote:On February 09 2011 20:35 Grantalf wrote: I've been vegan for 9 years. And from my experience and research, the health and environmental benefits would be enough to suggest it to anyone even if they don't agree with the animal rights argument.
It may be worth it to do research a few layers deeper than both PETA and Penn and Teller. Regardless, it's all incredibly interesting no matter how you feel.
And I also think that all of the Protoss race would be vegan if they had mouths. There is absolutely no data to support any benefits of being vegan as opposed to being vegetarian. Actually opposite is true. Source please. I would guess milk and cheese is an evolutionary irrelevant source of nutrition. As far as milk goes really ? , you think that that thing that all newborns drink is evolutionary irrelevant ? And even if I would not take it as literally and considered animal milk it is still highly evolutionary relevant, or do you think evolution stopped working when we domesticated the animals ?
As for the rest, source for what do you want ? The guy I reacted to made claims that were unsupported. The only claim I made is that as far as benefits go vegetarians are better off than vegans. I would think being able to live without supplements is benefit. And that is if I accept that as far as health goes the two are the same.
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On February 09 2011 22:26 Supamang wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 22:03 enzym wrote:On February 09 2011 22:00 Sm3agol wrote: If humans weren't supposed to eat meat, then our bodies wouldn't be able to handle eating meat.
Meat is tasty. There is nothing morally wrong with eating meat that I see. They are lower than us on the food chain, and their animal contemporaries certainly have no problem with ripping them to shreds and eating them alive. Why aren't you people crying out for the murder of all predators to keep all these poor animals from being mangled by lions and wolves and such? It is good for you.
I eat meat, and don't ever intend to stop. Because those other animals don't share human level of awareness and reasoning capability. Animals have little choice to act on anything but instincts. Humans do have that choice and if you do not make use of those capabilities but choose to ignore them then you are degrading yourself back to animal level, in fact placing yourself below the level of animals, because animals do not have such a choice. Yup, I agree. Forgoing free choice would be putting yourself down. But most of us in this thread arent ignoring that choice. We are actively choosing to put our own desires to eat meat in front of our sympathy for suffering animals. Yea, animal cruelty sucks, I wish those farms that are being cruel would treat their animals better (before slaughtering them for consumption lol). But I like to eat meat, those few instances of excessive cruelty won't stop me from eating it. Just like how blood diamonds wont stop a loving couple from buying an engagement ring, how environmental hazards wont stop people from driving cars or using electricity, how animal testing wont stop people from using pretty much any critical medical innovation in our modern day, etc. Oh, and you should really choose another argument. All youre trying to do is shame us meat eaters into thinking that we are somehow "sub-human". Theres no logical reasoning behind your argument. By putting yourself on a high horse and judging us to be "below the level of animals", you really make an ass of yourself. I bolded the part where you expressly favour instinct over reasoning.
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On February 09 2011 21:58 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 21:47 mcc wrote:On February 09 2011 20:35 Grantalf wrote: I've been vegan for 9 years. And from my experience and research, the health and environmental benefits would be enough to suggest it to anyone even if they don't agree with the animal rights argument.
It may be worth it to do research a few layers deeper than both PETA and Penn and Teller. Regardless, it's all incredibly interesting no matter how you feel.
And I also think that all of the Protoss race would be vegan if they had mouths. There is absolutely no data to support any benefits of being vegan as opposed to being vegetarian. Actually opposite is true. Meat consumption creates problems by inflicting unnecessary suffering (current form of meat harvesting), being inefficient (requiring more land to sustain a population than non-meat diet) and by releasing gases emanating from dung which can have an impact on global climate. I haven't read anything invalidating these claims yet. If you have any information in that regard please share. Way to not read my post, did you actually see any mention of meat eating in that post.
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On February 09 2011 22:22 Sm3agol wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 22:09 MiraMax wrote:On February 09 2011 22:00 Sm3agol wrote: If humans weren't supposed to eat meat, then our bodies wouldn't be able to handle eating meat.
Meat is tasty. There is nothing morally wrong with eating meat that I see. They are lower than us on the food chain, and their animal contemporaries certainly have no problem with ripping them to shreds and eating them alive. Why aren't you people crying out for the murder of all predators to keep all these poor animals from being mangled by lions and wolves and such? It is good for you.
I eat meat, and don't ever intend to stop. Pretty convincing line of reasoning you have there ... and I guess if humans were not supposed to kill each other they would not have brains to develop guns, nor fingers to trigger them, right? Wow, that's quite the deviance in argument. I'm pretty sure humans weren't meant to fly either, herp derp. If eating meat was bad for humans, then we wouldn't have evolved with the ability to eat it. You're the people saying humans eating meat is unnatural...as if we haven't been eating it for umpteen thousand years.
First, I never said it's "unnatural" that humans eat animals, only that it is hardly relevant whether it is natural or not, but I guess you understood by now that this argument of yours is not doing any work for you.
Show nested quote + Furthermore might makes right, so the strongest is obviously entitled to eat a weaker contemporary. Why exactly doesn't this rule apply among humans again? Or does it?
Because humans are fundamentally equals. To each other, not to the tasty piece of meat sitting in my freezer atm. Tasty animals are not my equals. Until they develop the ability to interact with us in a reasonable way, I'll continue to eat them.
You are hardly making sense to me!? First you make an argument from speciism and then peddle back and allow them rights in principle if only their cognitive abilities were more advanced. Which of the two are you arguing for? Both?
Show nested quote + We got that animals cannot be held morally responsible, so we don't judge a lion in court. We also don't allow them to buy cars by the way, and nobody is arguing that we should. But animals are able to sustain themselves (in principle) and seem to prefer living from non-living and well-being from suffering. Don't you think you might at least want to try an argument as to why we can completely ignore their preferences?
Because we are at the top of the food chain, and they serve a useful purpose to the human race. So their opinion doesn't matter. And it can't matter because it isn't an opinion....it's merely their instinct.
Humans are animals too and their suffering from pain or emotional distress is not "an opinion" either, but an automatic/instintive reaction of a sentient being to external stimuli. The position of any animal in the "food chain" is completely irrelevant. If you take this argument to its logical conclusion you end up with: "it's okay for me to do, because I can hardly be stopped doing it".
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On February 09 2011 22:30 Body_Shield wrote: Will some of the vegan/vegitarian community return to eating meat when they finally get it tank grown?
After I stopped eating meat I slowly developed an irrational repulsion towards meat. I used to like most kinds of meat. But I always had issues with the consistency. Like the fat, cartilage, ligaments, etc. Now the idea is quite repulsive. Most vegetarians I know say they would like to eat meat and. I guess when they smell meat being cooked the smell must stir their appetite. To me it is repulsive.
Therefore, I am not sure. If they can tank grow stuff I would like to eat some fish again. But still it is strange to eat tissue that matches the tissue of your own body so closely. Would everyone have no problems eating tank grown meat that is grown out of human DNA?
Also, I think it's time for mods to hand out warnings to all the people with fallacious arguments like 'If I can be immoral, it can not be immoral but it is just natural'. I am seeing some of the worst stuff ever.This is almost going towards creationist-level when it comes to fallacies.
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On February 09 2011 22:10 TrinitySC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 21:46 BrogMeister wrote:On February 09 2011 21:35 TrinitySC wrote:On February 09 2011 19:41 Humppis wrote:On February 09 2011 19:22 TrinitySC wrote: At this point I'm actually curious. Why should animals have rights? A sociopath could ask why anyone else than him/her self has rights. Its showing empathy to our fellow earth dwellers, and not everybody can understand this. We humans define rights for our selves, whitch tends to end up in very selfish rules. See, this is the problem. Rather than attempting to offer up a decent rationale as to why animals should have rights, you react emotionally. You're basically telling me this is so because you're right and I'm wrong. Just because this is how you feel things should be, you label me as a sociopath at the slightest implication of disagreement from your views rather than taking the time to explain to me with reason why animals should have rights. "You are wrong because your views are not the same as mine." In that sense, how are you any different from religious extremists? I could even go so far as to reduce to ad hitlerum, and it would apply. There actually are many reasons why animals, to an extent, should have rights. An obvious one is that there is virtue in avoiding and discouraging cruelty (i.e. deliberate infliction of pain or suffering), whether it is to a human or animal. Even so, many factory farms around the world utilize methods that cause unnecessary pain and suffering for the animals they raise, and some people inflict pain to animals for no other reason than simple pleasure. Such forms of cruelty can expand as a menace to society as a whole, yet they can be avoided with little or no cost, and therefore it is good that we do so. But alas, no; we must give animals rights because you "believe" and "feel" that it's wrong. Bah. This is why I personally consider many of the opinions and arguments of PETA and other animal rights activists to be utter shit. Because even though some of them are valid efforts towards worthy causes, most of them amount to little more than delusional outcries of self-righteous drama queens pickled in confirmation bias. When you consistently resort to emotional, perjorative responses based upon faulty judgements (availibility, overconfidence, confirmation... you name it, you probably have it), all you manage to do is encourage reciprocation from those who disagree with you. But then again, maybe it's no coincidence this trait is so common among the more active activists... P.S. as for veganism.. I honestly don't care what you eat or don't eat, and to an extent I can empathize with your choices; the treatment of animals at certain facilities can be too much for me, too, sometimes. A lot of it is definitely unnecessary and, by all means, it's worth it to raise awareness in an effort to bring needless cruelty to an end. But consider this that somebody once told me: "Religion is like a penis; it's fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of one, but it's not fine to go around shoving it in other peoples' faces." The same pretty much applies to beliefs or practices of any kind, not just religion. Even so, some people have been being rather assertive with their beliefs regarding dietary habits of others, and even proceeded to call others out for reciprocating a response. This just ties right back to the ad hitlerum statement I made a few paragraphs above and it's downright annoying there's a thread with such an ulterior motive. Sometimes I'm genuinely embarrassed that I belong in this genus. </wall of text> The whole farming industry is unnecessary and inherently cruel. Even if we disregard the animals in the industry, it's still a source of unhealty food, a great waste of resources and a major cause of global warming. The reason vegans want to spread their lifestyle is not (mainly) because they are self-righteous, but because they care about the animals. "Superior intelligence is like a penis; it's fine to have one and fine to be proud of it, but it's not fine to use it to exploit less intelligent animals." You realize you just helped prove my point with that first sentence, right? But it is true that farming, the way it is done now, is a major source of global warming. It doesn't have to be, though, and it's much more realistic to have people buy organic meat than to have them stop eating meat altogether. As your second paragraph... you do realize that's what having superior intelligence is all about, don't you? That's how we got this far in the first place, and that's how we're staying here. Civilization itself is grounded in, and would have never got this far without, exploitation of less intelligent animals.
Please describe your point in one sentence.
If meatproduction were to be optimized from a global climate perspective, it would probably involve creating conditions even worse for the animals. Organic production are more concerned about pesticides and local environment than about climate.
I do recognize that using our intelligence to exploit nature and expand our civilization is a central part of the human success story, but I do also recognize that we seem to fail in using our intelligence to create a fair, sustainable society even when we seemingly have sufficient resources to do so.
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I really hope all of you ethical vegetarians never wear a leather belt or sit on a leather seat, thats unethical!
Oh by the way, don't use computers or phones etc. The mining of the materials is killing apes / monkies in Africa. So no more technology please. After all we don't want to contradict ourselves do we?
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On February 09 2011 22:42 Mitchlew wrote: I really hope all of you ethical vegetarians never wear a leather belt or sit on a leather seat, thats unethical!
Oh by the way, don't use computers or phones etc. The mining of the materials is killing apes / monkies in Africa. So no more technology please. After all we don't want to contradict ourselves do we?
This is just an example. People murder for the stuff in your mobile phones. Does that mean I can murder you? If not, why do you have a phone?
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On February 09 2011 22:34 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 22:26 Supamang wrote:On February 09 2011 22:03 enzym wrote:On February 09 2011 22:00 Sm3agol wrote: If humans weren't supposed to eat meat, then our bodies wouldn't be able to handle eating meat.
Meat is tasty. There is nothing morally wrong with eating meat that I see. They are lower than us on the food chain, and their animal contemporaries certainly have no problem with ripping them to shreds and eating them alive. Why aren't you people crying out for the murder of all predators to keep all these poor animals from being mangled by lions and wolves and such? It is good for you.
I eat meat, and don't ever intend to stop. Because those other animals don't share human level of awareness and reasoning capability. Animals have little choice to act on anything but instincts. Humans do have that choice and if you do not make use of those capabilities but choose to ignore them then you are degrading yourself back to animal level, in fact placing yourself below the level of animals, because animals do not have such a choice. Yup, I agree. Forgoing free choice would be putting yourself down. But most of us in this thread arent ignoring that choice. We are actively choosing to put our own desires to eat meat in front of our sympathy for suffering animals. Yea, animal cruelty sucks, I wish those farms that are being cruel would treat their animals better (before slaughtering them for consumption lol). But I like to eat meat, those few instances of excessive cruelty won't stop me from eating it. Just like how blood diamonds wont stop a loving couple from buying an engagement ring, how environmental hazards wont stop people from driving cars or using electricity, how animal testing wont stop people from using pretty much any critical medical innovation in our modern day, etc. Oh, and you should really choose another argument. All youre trying to do is shame us meat eaters into thinking that we are somehow "sub-human". Theres no logical reasoning behind your argument. By putting yourself on a high horse and judging us to be "below the level of animals", you really make an ass of yourself. I bolded the part where you expressly favour instinct over reasoning. Thanks, but thats not favouring instinct over reasoning. Thats weighing how much I care about either choice, and choosing my own satisfaction over another animal's well being. You can call me an asshole but you cant call me stupid.
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On February 09 2011 21:57 BrogMeister wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 21:47 mcc wrote:On February 09 2011 20:35 Grantalf wrote: I've been vegan for 9 years. And from my experience and research, the health and environmental benefits would be enough to suggest it to anyone even if they don't agree with the animal rights argument.
It may be worth it to do research a few layers deeper than both PETA and Penn and Teller. Regardless, it's all incredibly interesting no matter how you feel.
And I also think that all of the Protoss race would be vegan if they had mouths. There is absolutely no data to support any benefits of being vegan as opposed to being vegetarian. Actually opposite is true. Source please. I would guess milk and cheese is an evolutionary irrelevant source of nutrition.
That's true for most people but northern Europeans actually are adapted for drinking milk and dairy products into adult hood, so it was clearly an integral source of nutrition since it initiated natural selection against people who can't drink milk. Heres a picture from Wikipedia that shows lactose intolerance for each country.
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On February 09 2011 22:41 Kirameki wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 22:30 Body_Shield wrote: Will some of the vegan/vegitarian community return to eating meat when they finally get it tank grown? After I stopped eating meat I slowly developed an irrational repulsion towards meat. I used to like most kinds of meat. But I always had issues with the consistency. Like the fat, cartilage, ligaments, etc. Now the idea is quite repulsive. Most vegetarians I know say they would like to eat meat and. I guess when they smell meat being cooked the smell must stir their appetite. To me it is repulsive. Therefore, I am not sure. If they can tank grow stuff I would like to eat some fish again. But still it is strange to eat tissue that matches the tissue of your own body so closely. Would everyone have no problems eating tank grown meat that is grown out of human DNA? Also, I think it's time for mods to hand out warnings to all the people with fallacious arguments like 'If I can be immoral, it can not be immoral but it is just natural'. I am seeing some of the worst stuff ever.This is almost going towards creationist-level when it comes to fallacies.
You sound like a true vegan, and you are repulsed by the thought or meat, so you are ok in my book. But there are people who just do it because, and that pisses me off for some reason.
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@Mahoogee I don't believe that list is true. I have a few problems with that and I think some things from the list used to be made from animal material in past but not anymore. Just to satisfy my curiosity, what animal material is used to produce modern tires?
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On February 09 2011 22:42 Mitchlew wrote: I really hope all of you ethical vegetarians never wear a leather belt or sit on a leather seat, thats unethical!
Oh by the way, don't use computers or phones etc. The mining of the materials is killing apes / monkies in Africa. So no more technology please. After all we don't want to contradict ourselves do we?
This is the worst kind of argument. If you can't change the world all at once, don't do anything. Is that your point?
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On February 09 2011 13:15 FrostyTreats wrote: I'm glad we live in a society where you can make such lifestyle choices. And it wouldn't be American if you didn't force it on other people. 90% of vegans treat me like shit when I tell them I have no gripes with eating meat and love it.
Apparently the butcher who I've known for most of my life tortures all of his animals, even though I've seen the living conditions and process and it's absolutely completely humane. They're treated better than most pets I've seen. It's not EATING meat that's the issue, it's corporations playing into consumerism and then trying to get everything out the door for the cheapest dollar.
I agree what corporations do is fucking sick, something should be done about it =\ I hate seeing, even thinking about cows getting tortured.
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On February 09 2011 22:47 GreEny K wrote: You sound like a true vegan, and you are repulsed by the thought or meat, so you are ok in my book. But there are people who just do it because, and that pisses me off for some reason.
Wait, my bad arguments you respect. But my good arguments piss you off? Well, I guess that goes to show the logic of the anti-vegan/vegetarians here.
BTW, I am not vegan.
Anyway, all your meat eaters should be happy you are born this generation and not 50 years into the future. It won't take long until we frown upon the time where animals didn't have their universal basic rights protected.
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